PYOTR KAPRUSHKIN STARED OUT HIS WINDOW at the gray slush, gray concrete, gray sky. Was he in the same country—or even on the same planet—as his old home in Slyudyanka on the southern tip of Lake Baikal? The air, the water, even the vegetables all had had a fresh taste, like spring water. That had been then.
Now the great lake smelled of dirt, on good days, and so did the food. Looking at the gray outside, he shook his head. Then he wiped his damp forehead. His fingers moved to loosen the heavy woolen uniform jacket.
“The heat…” The Colonel did not finish the sentence as he studied the sealed window of the modern Western-style building. “At least in the old offices, the windows opened.” He shook his head again slowly. “This city living. It softens people. With the first chill in the cities, everyone hurries into an oven to bake. They can’t breathe. Yet they want to come here. They beg and bribe for the chance to live in Moscow. How will we survive if farmers want to leave the land—their life—to live in a concrete hovel?” The Colonel struck his fist lightly against the unbreakable glass.
Tap … tap …
“Yes?”
“General Voloninov is here, Colonel.”
The Colonel nodded and stepped around the desk toward the burly General.
“Greetings, Pyotr Alexandrovich.” Voloninov’s voice rasped through the warm air. His forehead was also damp under the short and heavy silver hair.
“Greetings, General Voloninov.” The Colonel gestured toward the leather armchair he had obtained just for Voloninov.
The General had not waited for the invitation, but gestured from the red leather chair toward the wooden armchair across from it. “Sit down.”
The Colonel sat.
“So … Pyotr, you have a new agent in place. Will he give me the plans for the American space laser or stop them from building their new bomber?” General Voloninov’s voice, almost soft, rumbled toward the Colonel. “Or will he at least support technical aid for our industry?”
“The new agent is a woman.”
“Ah, yes.” The General looked past the Colonel toward the gray reflected in the window. “You spend our money—hard currency—on recruiting ‘special’ agents in the American government. Will this one ever supply anything more than pesticide control plans, Pyotr Alexandrovich?” The General’s deep-set eyes fixed on the Colonel, and his voice dropped almost to a rumbling whisper. “Information—or results. Those are what I need.”
The Colonel knew to keep silent.
“So … Colonel, how did you recruit this new person? As you did the others?”
“Yes, General. With the same strategy.” The Colonel let his voice reflect the role of the correct senior officer. “We found someone who bent a few rules to accomplish what she thought was right. She needed money. Her son is in a private hospital—a drug problem. One of our people thanked her by paying the back bill before the boy was thrown out on the street. She was shown the record of the payment and told that future bills would be taken care of. She doesn’t even know who she’s working for.” The Colonel shrugged his shoulders.
“Now she is ours. But what will she do for us?”
“She determines the safe level of exposures to workplace chemicals. She will be encouraged to make those levels as low and as safe as possible.”
“And will that stop the Americans from building their advanced tactical fighter?” pursued Voloninov.
The Colonel shrugged. “It will increase the cost of any materials fabrications, General. And since cost drives the military procurement system, it will reduce the number of weapons built.”
“They still build too many.”
“But less each year,” observed the Colonel.
“For all the good that will do us.” Voloninov shrugged, then stood. “Make your reports as usual.”
The Colonel had risen with the General.
“Do not trouble yourself to see me out, Colonel.”
The heavy door closed.
The Colonel looked at the door, then turned and looked at the gray outside. His steps took him to the window.
The meeting had gone like all the others. Explaining his work to Voloninov was like describing Copernican astronomy to a medieval pope. The General listened, but he never seemed to hear. The plan wasn’t too complicated or advanced to understand. If the Americans were induced to develop environmental and health laws that made high-technology industry and weapons building more difficult, then war would become more difficult—and far more costly. The American war machine ran on money.
Voloninov wanted industrial secrets, yet the General did not appreciate what the program had already provided. Did he understand that the environmental disclosure rules—another coup—had revealed more technical details than the Americans had ever realized?
The rain, ice crystals in water, splashed against the glass. Pyotr wiped his forehead again, wondering who had protected his program for so long without ever stepping out from the shadows.
For years General Voloninov had interrogated him, and before him General Salnikov, yet his operations had remained funded, at a low level perhaps, but enough to continue with an ever-increasing number of agents.
Kaprushkin pursed his lips, then pulled out the desk chair. It should have been time to report success, but full knowledge of the extent of his success would be his undoing.
“And yet it moves,” he muttered to himself. He began shifting papers from his desktop to the second drawer, the one in which he always placed them before leaving the office. “It moves.”